Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 06:50, 4 January 2006

• These userboxes templates were nominated for deletion by Tony Sidaway on 4 January, 2006.

A large number of userbox templates concerning beliefs and convictions

The purpose of these templates is to provide userboxes that an editor can apply to his user page, and in doing so he adds himself to a category according to his personal convictions or religious beliefs The dangers of this were starkly demonstrated late last month when, after the nomination for deletion of Misplaced Pages:Catholic Alliance of Misplaced Pages the creator of that page used the userbox categories to locate over 40 Roman Catholics whose user talk pages he spammed in an attempt to subvert the consensual decision-making process of Misplaced Pages in order to keep a page that was avowedly intended "to nurture and keep wikipedia's pro-life/pro-catholic articles and categories."

We're getting into dangerous territory here, and this is a very recent thing. Of the 44 userboxes that I found listed on Misplaced Pages:Userboxes/Beliefs yesterday, only 3 had existed prior to December, and a very high proportion seem to have been created over the Christmas/New Year holiday. These userboxes must go because they turn Misplaced Pages into a network of people linked together by their factional interests,and as such are a grave danger to the neutrality policy. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and anything that threatens the neutrality policy must go.

To clarify, it's not so much the pretty little box that makes these userboxes so toxic, it's the ease of adding the box, which adds the editor in question to a category that we know will be abused by POV-pushers, because it already has been. This isn't about stopping people having a "bumper sticker" on their user pages, it's about stopping the category system being abused to destroy the neurality policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Template:User childless
• Template:User Pro-life
• Template:User Pro-choice
• Template:User life and choice
• Template:User against fox hunting
• Template:User ape-equality
• Template:User flag Australia
• Template:User Run-Off
• Template:User vote
• Template:User Monarchist
• Template:User liberty
• Template:User liberal
• Template:User Christian democrat
• Template:User apolitical
• Template:User No Marxism
• Template:User libertarian socialist
• Template:User Socialist
• Template:User anti oligarchy
• Template:User marxian
• Template:User marxist
• Template:User Christian communist
• Template:User Trot
• Template:User Commie Bastard
• Template:User Anarcho-capitalist
• Template:User Anarchosyndicalist
• Template:User Anarchist
• Template:User pro concealed carry
• Template:User anti gun control
• Template:User evol-2
• Template:User Jew
• Template:User Jain
• Template:User Adventist
• Template:User rc
• Template:User Catholic Evangelical
• Template:Reformed Baptist
• Template:User eastortho
• Template:User religion flying spaghetti monster not really
• Template:User IPU2
• Template:User pope
• Template:User Hell
• Template:User spiritual humanist
• Template:User secular humanist
• Template:User humanist
• Template:User Noahide
• Template:User lennonist
• Template:User monolatry
• Template:User religion interest
• Template:User religion
• Template:User evol-4
• Template:User evol-3
• Template:User evol-2
• Template:User evol-1
• Template:User evol-0
• Template:User creationist
• Template:User evolution
• Template:User No Recycling
• Template:User Recycling
• Template:User clean fuels
• Template:User not-Drug-free
• Template:User Drug-free
• Template:User All Drugs
• Template:User cannabis
• Template:User EFF
• Template:User antimonarchist
• Template:User Christian
• Template:User AI
• Template:User Chinese Traditional Religion
• Template:User Capitalist
• Template:User Communist
• Template:User Anti-euro

• Speedy Keep all. Unless people are suddenly coming here to visit user pages and not encyclopedia pages, I don't see the harm in these at all. The number of visitors seeing them must be so small as to be meaningless when taken as a whole of all of Misplaced Pages's traffic. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all, per Tony's reasoning. Titoxd 05:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all, pending a more complete userbox policy. I belive that one is now under discussion. Once it is accepted, then delete any uservoxes which are unacceptable under that policy, and only those. This is an attempt to make policy via a deletion discussion, which is usually a poor idea, or else it assumes consensus on an existing policy which clearly does not yet exist. DES 05:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all for the time being because there are discussions already as to what Misplaced Pages policy on Userboxes should be and I believe we should not be deleting Userboxes until some form of final consesus is reached. Also, just on a sidenote, Template:User childless isn't regarding beliefs or convictions, might like to remove it... --Loopy 05:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all per DES and Loopy--Naha| 05:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Reasoning behind proposal is specious. A user could just as easily express his beliefs in text on his user page; do we want to police them all? Nor is is any great danger that some POV holders wish to organize themselves. Concerted (but not formally coordinated) efforts of likeminded editors effectively act as organizations already, but that's just a phenomenon of existing in a social space. It is the clash of differing POVs that result in effective NPOV policing. More dangerous to me would be the development of an unspoken, and thus insiduous and undetected, kind of groupthink. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom, but this is a temporary solution at best. This list is incomplete, and obviously will be more incomplete as more boxes are created. We do need that policy, and it needs to allow the deletion of violating templates on sight. -- SCZenz 05:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - The argument that these boxes somehow cause harm in the form of creating political polarization that wasn't already there is specious, at best. – ClockworkSoul 05:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all userboxes everywhere - That being said, don't say I didn't warn everyone that this vote is going to destroy TFD's normal operation for as long as it's here. -- Netoholic @ 05:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, but then it came back, and as long as its here and one has an opinion about it, it would be unwise not to vote. If the consensus is delete though, I pity the poor admin who has to delete all those boxes -- and then has to cope with complaints from people who use them who were unaware this vote was taking place. Sure the notice appeared on Misplaced Pages:Userboxes/Beliefs, but that's a recently created page to which many of the template listing were moved, not where they were first listed. A great many interested parties are therefore not watching it. A bit unfair, really. I think they ought to be kept for that reason alone, but then I'm biased. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all of them...using MOAB--MONGO 06:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all pending consensus being developed here: Misplaced Pages:Proposed policy on userboxes. Suggest that all those sharing their views here may want to consider participating there, once policy is clear, userbox related TfD discussions will go a lot smoother. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 06:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• speedy keep Did you people leave your brains home today?--Xenaphon 06:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - In terms of explaining your position, your remark could be more helpful. --DragonHawk 06:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep pending finished policy on userboxes and completion of that already-existing discussion. --AySz88^-^ 06:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all but then what happens when we get {{User against eating banannas}}? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all for now, unconvinced that this is the best solution to what is fundamentally a problem of user behavior. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. Considering it's completely fair game to express beliefs on one's own user page, why should doing so through userboxes be policed or outlawed? John5008 --- talk 06:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep pending policy - As others have noted, this vote is premature. Serious discussion on a general policy on user boxes is happening. We should allow that discussion to happen. (Personally, I'm in the delete camp, but discussion needs to happen.) --DragonHawk 06:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all. As per nominator. A userbox that says "This editor is interested in topics related to Christianity" is fine. A userbox which says "This user is a Christian" is not. And a userbox which says "This user opposes Scientology" is just plain out. Kelly Martin (talk) 06:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • A sincere, nonsarcastic question: how are userboxes that "this user is a Christian" different from user pages that bear the exact same text? They, after all, have always been perfectly acceptable. – ClockworkSoul 06:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Good question. A userbox has a category and thus makes it easy for a large number of people sharing a point of view to be located. This is what makes these particular userboxes so toxic to Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I see. Why not just remove the categories, then? – ClockworkSoul 06:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all. Misplaced Pages is not a personal home page hosting service. —Psychonaut 06:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)